JPH0259065B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (a) Field of Industrial Application The present invention relates to a pattern output device most suitable for proportional printing of italic characters, etc. in a dot line printer or the like.

(b) Prior Art As for proportional printing using a conventional dot line printer, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application No. 58-78436, when forming a dot pattern on one line of image buffer, each character is There is a method of setting the character width of , and then determining the storage start position of each character on the image buffer based on the set value.

However, in such a method, for example, if italic letters "h" and "a" are printed consecutively, they will appear separated as shown in FIG. 1, which is undesirable.

In fact, as shown in FIG. 2, it is preferable that the "h" pattern and the "a" pattern be printed so as to overlap. In addition, in Figures 1 and 2
Bh and Ba indicate the character widths of patterns "h" and "a", respectively.

(c) Purpose of the Invention The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a pattern output device suitable for printing characters with diagonal patterns such as italics using a dot line printer. That is.

(d) Structure of the Invention The structural features of the present invention include a first storage means capable of storing at least one line of characters, symbols, etc. as codes; a second storage means capable of storing an output image; a proportional width specification for outputting the difference in position of each leading dot of rearwardly adjacent dot patterns when stored in the second storage means corresponding to the code; means for specifying the embedding position for managing the storage start position of each dot pattern in the second storage means, and embedding the dot pattern based on the difference output from the proportional width specifying means in response to the code. The position specifying means determines the storage start position of each dot pattern in the second storage means.

(e) Embodiment FIG. 3 shows an embodiment of the present invention. Reference numeral 1 denotes a control section composed of, for example, a microcomputer, and the control section controls signals RP indicating the read position, read instruction signal R, read instruction signal R, write instruction signal W,
Outputs a reset signal RS and control signals _C1 to _C4 ,
It controls the various parts explained below.

Reference numeral 2 denotes a read pointer section, which holds the signal RP output from the control section.

Reference numeral 3 denotes a character code memory, in which one line of code corresponding to the dot pattern to be output is stored, and the code corresponding to the signal RP held in the read pointer section 2 based on the read instruction signal R is stored. Outputs the code CC stored at the address.

Reference numeral 4 denotes a character code latch section, which temporarily holds the code CC output from the character code memory 3 based on the write instruction signal.

Reference numeral 5 denotes a pattern memory, in which dot patterns of each character are stored in one-to-one correspondence with the above code.

Reference numeral 6 denotes an image buffer, which has a storage capacity capable of storing one line of a printed image of a dot pattern corresponding to the code in the character code memory 3. Furthermore, the contents stored in the buffer are cleared by the reset signal RS.

Reference numeral 7 denotes an address specifying section, which reads the code CC from the character code latch section 4 based on the control signal C1, and outputs the address PA in the pattern memory 5 in which the dot pattern corresponding to the code is stored. do.

8 is a proportional width designation part (hereinafter simply referred to as width designation part), in which the control signal is
Based on _C2 , the dot width (hereinafter referred to as embedding width) DB corresponding to the code CC held in the character code latch section 4 is output. The embedding width DB is the difference in the position of the storage start dot in the image buffer 6 between rearwardly adjacent dot patterns, and specifically, it is the difference represented by D in FIG. , and the embedding width DB is determined by the previous dot pattern among the adjacent dot patterns, that is, the pattern "h" in FIG.

Reference numeral 9 denotes an embedding position determining means, which includes an embedding position specifying section 10 in which the storage start position of the dot pattern in the image buffer 6 is stored, and an adder 1.
1, and a width specifying section 8 based on the control signal C3.
Embedding width DB and embedding position specification section 10 output from
The adder 11 adds the contents to the contents of the embedding position specifying section 10. Further, the contents of the embedding position specifying section 10 are cleared to "0" by the reset signal RS.

Reference numeral 12 denotes an embedding processing section, which first reads out the dot pattern in the pattern memory 5 specified by the address PA output from the address specifying section 7 based on the control signal C4, and then specifies the embedding position. The dot pattern is written in the area of the image buffer 6 after the storage start position in the unit 10.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the above-mentioned control program, and the operation of the apparatus of this embodiment will be explained below by giving a specific example based on the flowchart.

First, it is assumed that the character code memory 3 sequentially stores codes corresponding to the characters "h", "i", and "t" as shown in FIG. In addition, the width of each character of such characters is 30, 15, 26, and the embedding width is 28, 14,
23, and the dot patterns corresponding to each of the above codes are in italics.

In such a state, when a command (not shown) is given from the outside to the control unit 1 to create a print image for one line in the image buffer 6 from the code for one line in the character code memory 3. First, in step _S1 , a reset signal RS is output, and the image buffer 6 and embedding position specifying section 10 are cleared.

Next, in step _S2 , the code of the character "h" located at the beginning of the line is stored in the character code latch section 4. Specifically, first, the control unit 1 sends the character code memory 3 in which the code for the character "h" is stored.
address is output as the signal RP, and then the read instruction signal R is output, so that the code for the character "h" is read out from the character code memory 3, and based on the write instruction signal W, the code is transferred to the character code latch section. It is stored in 4.

When the _S2 step is completed, the process proceeds to _S3 step. In step _S3 , the address in the pattern memory 5 where the dot pattern corresponding to the code in the character code latch section 4 is stored is specified. Specifically, based on the control signal C1, the address specifying section 7 reads out the code in the character code latch section 4,
The address PA corresponding to such code is output.
In this case, since the above code is the code for the letter "h", the address PA becomes the address in the pattern memory 5 where the dot pattern for the letter "h" is stored.

Next, _{the S4} step is processed, in which a dot pattern is written into the image buffer 6. Specifically, the embedding processing unit 12 reads the address from the pattern memory 5 based on the control signal _C4 .
The dot pattern stored in the PA is read out, and the pattern is written from the storage start position stored in the embedding position specifying section 10 of the image buffer 6.

Now, the content of the embedding position specification section 10 is "0", the address PA indicates the address where the dot pattern of the character "h" is stored, and the character width of the character "h" is 30, so the As shown in FIG. 6A, a dot pattern of the letter "h" is written between the 0th dot and the 29th dot at the beginning of the image buffer 6.

When the processing of step _S4 is completed, the processing proceeds to step _S5 . In step _S5 , the width specifying section 8 outputs the embedding width DB of the character corresponding to the code of the character code latch section 4 based on the control signal C2.

Since the character "h" is now stored in the character code latch section 4, the embedding width DB is "28".

Next, in step _S6 , the embedding position designation section 10
The content of is changed. Specifically, the contents of the embedding position designation section 10 and the embedding width DB are determined based on the control signal _C3 .
are added in the adder 11, and the result is written into the embedding position specifying section 10.

Now, "0" is stored in the embedding position specifying section 10 before addition, and the embedding width DB is "28", so after the _S6 step processing, "27" is stored in the embedding position specifying section 10.
It will be stored.

Next, in step _S7 , it is determined whether or not the processing for one line has been completed, that is, whether all character codes stored in the character code memory 3 have been processed. If not, the process returns to step _S2 , and the next code is processed in steps _S2 to _S6 in the same manner as above.

Now, when the processing for the character "h" code is completed, the processing for the character "i" and "t" codes has not yet been completed, so steps S ₂ to S ₆ are processed in order for each code. I will do it. As a result, the contents of the image buffer 6 become as shown in FIG. 6B.

(f) Effects of the Invention As described above, by using the present invention, it is possible to perform proportional printing with good appearance even for oblique characters such as italics.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

1 and 2 are schematic diagrams for explaining proportional printing, FIGS. 3 to 6 show embodiments of the present invention, FIG. 3 is a block diagram, FIG. 4 is a flowchart, and FIG. The figure and FIG. 6 are schematic diagrams. 3...Character code memory (first storage means),
6... Image buffer (second storage means) 8...
...Proportional width designation section, 9...Embedding position designation means.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A first storage means capable of storing at least one line of characters, symbols, etc. as a code, a second storage means capable of storing at least one line of output image of a dot pattern corresponding to the first storage means; a proportional width specifying means for outputting the difference in position of each leading dot of rearwardly adjacent dot patterns when stored in the second storage means corresponding to the code; The embedding position specifying means controls the second storage of each dot pattern based on the difference output from the proportional width specifying means corresponding to the code. A pattern output device characterized in that a storage start position is determined by means.